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U.S. Marshals Help Track Down Health Care Executive in Mexico

Sophisticated and a person of means, convicted health care executive Rebecca S. Parrett was one tough person to track down. She was on the lam for two years.

But the Justice Department announced Wednesday that Mexican authorities arrested Parrett, 62, Tuesday in the resort town of Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexico, thanks to information provided by the U.S. Marshals Service in Columbus Ohio. She was immediately deported to the U.S.

The capture came after the U.S. Marshals and other law enforcement agencies followed leads in more than a dozen states and several foreign countries, the Justice Department said.

Parrett fled in March of 2008 after a federal jury convicted her on charges stemming from her role in a $2.8 billion fraud that led to the collapse of National Century Financial Enterprise, based in Dublin, Ohio. It was one of the largest health care financiers in the nation.

“I’ve been doing this for 12 years, and this was the most detailed and far-reaching investigation I’ve ever been a part of,” Drew Shadwick, deputy U.S. marshal in Columbus, Ohio told the Washington Post. “She was difficult to find, because she is intelligent, she was a woman of means and she had plenty of time to plan her escape.”

“She was living comfortably – making friends and going out dancing,” Shadwick told the Post.